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The Rural Development Institute in Karnataka

Current Activities

The national government is working to link it’s housing programme with the state government’s homestead programme, with technical and advisory support from RDI. This will allow poor landless families to obtain the assistance they need from the national government to build a home on the plots they receive through the state’s micro-plot scheme.

The state government is partnering with RDI to study the impact and performance of the state’s old homestead programme, with an eye toward improving and restarting the homestead programme. We’ve found that homestead plot programmes have the potential to boost family income, nutrition, health, security and education.

History
Working with the state government of Karnataka, RDI has helped the states design a pioneering homestead plot programme that has since become a model for other Indian states. Fourteen percent of rural households in Karnataka do not own any agricultural land or homestead¹. Twenty-five percent of the population in the State of Karnataka is living in poverty².

1 Source: Ownership Holdings of Land in Rural India: Putting the Record Straight by Vikas Rawal – Special Article EPW, Issue March 8, 2008